


Scientific Curiosity

by Jarakrisafis



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-25
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jarakrisafis/pseuds/Jarakrisafis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Wheeljack decides that being a scientist seems like fun. Not everymech agrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exothermic Oxidation-Reduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When somebody says 'do not' what is the first thing you do?

“What’s that?”

The engineer barely blinked at the interruption, his audial indicators flaring briefly with his irritation. Why Sentinel Prime had decided that a ‘bring your creation to work cycle’ had been a good idea he didn’t know. As it was, the youngling, one of his co-workers creations, had already almost immolated them several times.

He smacked the dark grey hand away from his work bench for the forty-ninth time since his shift began. “Look, this is combustive; do you really want to set yourself on fire?”

The youngling cocked his helm to one side as he thought about that. “No.”

“Good.” He picked the tongs back up and reached out towards the metal slivers on his bench, he would need to concentrate to add them unless he wanted to overdo it and have the entire mix become unstable.

“I just want to know what happens if you mix these.”

The grey hand intercepted his tongs, casually picking up a handful of slivers before dumping them in the other container.

“What part of ‘watch, don’t touch’ do you not understand?” he frowned at his charge for the shift.

“That is so awesome!” The youngling said, his own audial fins rippling with colour.

Awesome was not the word he would have chosen.

What had once been a perfectly stable compound for the mining search and rescue department to use to burn through obstacles was now merrily burning its way through his workshop floor, having already gone straight through the bench, the smouldering edges still occasionally dripping molten metal down onto the slag below.

“I’m going to tell creator I want to be an engineer when I upgrade.” That said Wheeljack ducked out the door with a last appreciative glance at the fiery mess he had created.

“Primus help us all.”


	2. Exothermic Thermolysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The words ‘and then it began to fizz’ will never be reassuring.

“Creator!”

“Not now Wheeljack.” The mech didn’t even look up as the youngling bounced into the room, his optics fixed on the datascreen. “Shouldn’t you be in the laboratories?”

He had found another mech willing to look after his creation for the duration of Sentinel Prime’s ridiculous decree. Bring your creation to work indeed, Wheeljack would have been bored out of his processor after a breem of watching the datascreens and would have learnt nothing.

“Well, yes, but you see there was...” He waved his creation out with a hand, already tuning out anything else he might have had to say. He was the lab mechs problem for today.

Floating in space a quarter of a cycle later he growls, the sound lost in space, but the rippling armour plates and rapidly flashing red helm fins clearly signalling his current mood.

The youngling drifting in front of him offers a sheepish smile and an apologetic flicker of his indicators, even as the base medic finishes looking over the scorched form before gliding away, gently directing his flight with his thrusters.

:What did you do?: He asks over a wideband comm. once the medic has left. Several pings letting him know that many of the surrounding mechs are all listening in.

But then again, having a youngling blow up a large chunk of an orbital station and causing a base wide evacuation is hardly a normal occurrence.

:I wanted to see what would happen if I added something to the glowing green stuff.: Wheeljack managed to sound excited, despite having almost extinguished himself in an explosion worthy of any demolition mech.

:Glowing green stuff?: He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know. There was a reason he remained in the data archiving and analysis sector of the base. It was less likely to go up in flames. At least the positive side of being in space was that the fire only burnt for a short while until the emergency systems vented the artificial atmosphere being used to simulate planetary surfaces in the laboratory area.

:It was in one of the labs.: Wheeljack tilted his helm. :And the purple gel I found was really awesome and it dissolved when I added it to the green. And then it turned blue. Then it began to fizz.:

:It began to fizz?: One of the lab mechs chimed in on the channel with confusion, a small reaction like that shouldn’t have caused such destruction.

:Uhuh. So I added a vial of orange stuff to try and stop it...: The youngling was trying to look apologetic, but there was a strange light in his optics as he added the final part. :Then it went boom.:


	3. Sublimation

Sometimes an event can be predicted before it happens even with no prior knowledge.

Cybertronian didn’t have a word for such a process until they came across organic species which introduced a new series of glyphs into the ever expanding Cybertronian language.

They called it precognition.

On orbital laboratory station beta-six-nine several mechs would now swear by Primus that they were experiencing this strange organic phenomenon.

The mech currently handling the comm. station flashed his helm indicators in a quick query as he turned to regard the data analyst that had just wandered in.

“Wheeljack.”

The comm. mech tilted his helm, confusion clearly showing at his colleagues answer. “Isn’t he in Iacon? At school.”

A quick affirmative was flashed as the data analyst sank into an unoccupied seat. “I just. I think.” He trailed off with a shrug.

“I doubt he can get into that much trouble.” Helm fins flared reassuringly as the mech turned back to his station to take an incoming call.

“You want? I see. It’ll just be a moment while I fetch him.” His indicators glowed with suppressed amusement as he unhooked himself from the dataport at the comm. station and rerouted the incoming call to the main screen rather than to himself. Slapping a hand over the mute key he turned back around. “I retract my previous statement. Iacon Foundation Academy is on the comm..”

Moving into view of the screen the mech tapped the button to unmute the transmission. “You wanted to speak to me?”

“You’re Wheeljack’s Creator?”

“Yes. What...” His question was abruptly cut off as the mech on the other end of the line started talking again.

“I demand that you get down here. Now. That youngling... It shouldn’t even be possible. You will come and remove that, that, menace from my class.”

“May I ask what he’s done?” If the mech had been able to understand the differing colours and sequences of helm indicators he would have understood that Wheeljack’s creator was not trying to defend his own creation. No, if he had understood, he would have clearly seen the trepidation with which the question had been asked.

“What has he done? WHAT HAS HE DONE?” Both mechs in the control room flinched as the last shout came through accompanied by a squeal of static.

“I’ll show you what he’s done.” The visual display came to life with a fizz of interference.

On second thoughts it was a good thing that the mech could not understand indicator speak, while both faces were perfectly blank, the irregularly flashing orange was a clear sign of their mirth.

“How exactly did he manage that?” The data analyst came to the fore as curiosity finally overtook the amusement.

“I have no idea.” The mech ground out. “If I knew that, I’d know how to clean it.” He brushed a hand over his new paint job. The fluorescent yellow-white substance clearly remaining adhered to his chassis in a fine mist like spray.

“Just come and collect him. Maybe you scientists can work out what he did. Since the experiment we were conducting was to show the process of state changes from solid to liquid. Not solid to gas, which then proceeded to spread out through the vent system and then back to a solid on every surface it could settle onto.” The mech sighed with a rattle of armour. “It wouldn’t be that bad, but the stuff is radioluminescent and the entire population of the Academy is glowing brightly enough to be seen by shuttles flying overhead.”

“I’ll be right down.”

“Good.” The mech said before he terminated the conversation.

In the ensuing silence the two mech stared at each other for a moment before both gave in to the laughter which had been threatening for much of the call.

On orbital laboratory station beta-six-nine, precognition was apparently not just limited to organics and was also synonymous with the designation Wheeljack.


	4. Fire?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never leave a budding chemical engineer unsupervised.

“I’m bored.”

The youngling was ignored, his creator lost in his data as he sorted and analysed. If he had been a little more aware he would have noticed the youngling creeping towards the door when the thirty-second repetition of the phrase ‘I’m bored’ didn’t even receive a flicker of acknowledgement.

He might also have looked at the comm. packet that he had just been sent, instead of shunting it into the computers back ups till he finished what he was sorting. But he was behind schedule, having just been down to Cybertron’s surface to pick up his wayward creation after a minor accident in his chemical engineering class.

If he had looked at the message he would have been made aware that his creation was heading in the direction of the labs.

Which, considering what had occurred the last time he had visited, was not a good thing. He had managed, in two separate incidents, to melt a hole through three decks of the orbital station, and reduce laboratory gamma eight to nothing more than cinders.

Unfortunately he didn’t look and his creation slipped unnoticed, (well almost, but the mech on security detail had done his duty and sent out a message before dismissing the wandering young mech from his processor,) into an open lab.

Dragging an empty crate over to the bench the youngling proceeded to set up the equipment as he had been shown in his classes, or at least, as well as he could recall, since some of these things he hadn’t been shown how to use yet, or were much bigger and better than the ones at the Academy.

There was something he’d wanted to try since his teacher had shown them that the rare aqueous solution that caused rust on lesser metals could be mixed with some types of metallic elements and create fire in a variety of colours.

He had said that he couldn’t show them much because it was too dangerous. But this was a better laboratory with better equipment.

That meant better fire.

Pulling out a closed container he poured the colourless and odourless liquid into a porcelain basin. His teacher had been quite strict about cross contamination and it wouldn’t do to have it react because he put it in a metal bowl.

The lab was well stocked, with small amounts of each element numbered and stacked on shelves. Thus it was easy enough to find the one his teacher had used and pull it out.

Throwing a small amount of the first metal into the solution he grinned as it fizzed in a slow reaction. He’d found the right group of metals.

Now all he had to do was work out which was the strongest of the group. Looking over the labels he finally pulled one of them out and opened the lid.

Tossing some into the container he grinned as it reacted more violently, fizzing as it made contact with the liquid and the excess gases burst into flame, burning a faintly lilac colour.

Maybe if he put some of the stronger metals in the fire would be even better. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Snatching up another container he unscrewed the lid and tossed a handful of the metal at the liquid.

“And what did you learn this time?”

Wheeljack blinked up at his creator with a perplexed expression as his headfins flashed in bemusement.

What had he learnt?

Oh.

“That getting hit with bits of porcelain hurts and can knock you offline.”


	5. Warning: Highly Flammable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wheeljack really should come with warning stickers

“He is to remain supervised at all times. Do not let him wander off. Definitely do not let him near anything electrical or chemical, especially anything liquid, flammable, corrosive, oxidising or in any way harmful.”

The carer just raised an optical ridge at the harried looking creator and sheepish youngling. The mech had called not long before to ask if they could take his youngling for the day as both himself and his mate had been called to a meeting and their youngling had been banned from setting foot on the base. Why he had been banned hadn’t been discussed, the mech merely flashing his strange helm fins in an intricate pattern as the youngling in the background of the comm. call had ducked his helm and slunk out of view.

“Well, come in then, Wheeljack was it?” The carer smiled when she received a quick smile as the youngling entered. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” She said as the mech gave her and her building a last worried glance before he transformed and sped off. Her centre had cared for thousands of sparklings and younglings while their creators worked. Wheeljack was in good hands. Probably his carrier and creator had never had to leave him anywhere before and were a little anxious. Not that they had anything to worry about. They were a highly regarded caring service with every type of toy to keep the young ones occupied and quality energon for refuelling time.

She lifted her armour in a shrug at the mech and femme when they arrived to pick Wheeljack up, as with all new younglings she had kept her optics on him at all times. The mech and femme exchanged commiserating glances with each other, almost, the carer reasoned, like they had expected something like this to happen. “Dare I ask?” The mech finally asked as he pointed imperiously at his feet.

“And how much is it going to cost us?” The femme added as the soot streaked youngling slunk over to his creator.

“Not as much as you’d think, the explosion only took out one of the walls.” She had to smother her laugh as the youngling seemed to be contemplating how he could sink into the ground. “And for the future, you might want to add energon to your list of banned substances.”


End file.
